


Death, Be Not Proud

by Pline



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/F, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Horror, M/M, Mild Gore, Original Character Death(s), POV Alternating, Paranormal, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pline/pseuds/Pline
Summary: There are moments barge loudly into your life and, even as you’re going through them, you know they will change everything.There are other moments that happen quietly, unnoticed, and it’s only afterwards that you know, looking back, that they have changed your life.When the 118 is called to a decrepit house, they don’t think much of it.Yet this will change their lives forever.
Relationships: Athena Grant/Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Henrietta "Hen" Wilson/Karen Wilson, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 22
Kudos: 60





	Death, Be Not Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Sonnet X_ by John Donne.
> 
> Big big thank you to my friend and roommate Morgane without whom this fic will not exist. I struggled with the ending and had given up on this damn fic but she helped me find a solution (actually, the resolution is basically all her).
> 
> So really I'm blaming her for this mess.
> 
> There are some tiny references to The Haunting of Hill House because I've just watched it for the third time and I'm as obsessed as I've ever been which is a lot.
> 
> I haven't read this over so there are probably a million mistakes but I just really wanna go watch Parasite finally now.
> 
> _Please, note that this is a horror fic and so deals with some disturbing imagery._
> 
> **Warnings**  
>  \- Mild gore (descriptions of rotting bodies)  
> \- Death of an OC  
> \- Haunting, vengeful spirits

“You’re sure this is the right address, Cap’?”

“That’s what dispatch gave, yes.”

Whether it be the rotting smell of the abandoned garden, the broken blinds hanging off their hinges or the paint peeling off the facade, but Eddie finds himself making a double take at where their newest call has taken them.

The house, hidden behind overgrown vegetation, has known better days.

In its prime, it must have been quite a sight to behold with its Victorian architecture, its high windows and elaborate arches. Now, however, it is little more than a carcass, a barely-standing structure in dire needs of either repairs or total demolition.

Everything is silent too. They are as remote as one can be in the Valley but not even the sounds of birds can be heard. There are no sounds at all but of their footstep crunching grass and herbs that have not been tended to in years.

“Caller said she was in her room up on the second floor,” Bobby announces, all business and focused as usual but Eddie catches him glancing a bit too long when a strange noise resonates from the backyard.

Eddie, always down to Earth, recognizes it as a metal door opening, yet he does wonder who opened it and for what as there are no neighbors close enough to be responsible for the sound.

“Is this a prank call or what?” Hen asks as they make their way to the front door. “This is a little too on the nose if you’re aiming for a spooky abandoned house in a horror movie.”

“For real,” Chim agrees. His voice, like their friends’, seem too loud in the stilted silence. “Someone really lives here?”

“Maybe it’s a meth house,” Buck offers. “Or another hoarder.”

“Can we go do our jobs or do you want to speculate some more?”

Buck and Chim visibly straighten at Bobby’s reprimand but Eddie catches Bobby’s smirk when the other two aren’t looking.

They find the front door open. Any humor they felt disappears.

The inside of the house fares no better than the outside.

Eddie is surprised to see that it does have electricity though the light bulbs have become dulled with time, setting the place in gloom and an aura of mystery. The whole decoration appears to have remained unchanged since 1974, and the dust as well.

“So it was a hoarder,” Chim comments.

But Eddie doesn’t agree. Yes, it is messy and covered in dust, some of it untouched in a long time, but the house is not overflowing with random objects and trash. On the contrary, it’s almost empty for such space – a couch over there, a table covered with unopened letters over here, but not much else.

Bobby cries out for their caller, an elderly woman who has only demanded an ambulance to be sent out before hanging up right after.

Later, they will blame the strange atmosphere for their own silence, as if the house itself would not allow idle shatter inside its decaying walls. But as they make their climb up the stairs, going deeper into the dimly-lit corridors in search of their caller, they don’t even question it. Their whole focus is set on their job and on making sure they don’t forget to breathe, as if the stale air would not let itself be inhaled by them.

Door after door, they find nothing but empty rooms, some devoid entirely of furniture. Eddie comes across one where the only thing in it is a stuffed goat which blank eyes seem to stare at him until he closes the door again.

“She’s here,” Buck shouts and all thoughts of disturbing dead animals escape him.

The woman’s skin is impossibly pale, like it has never known the kiss of the sun. Hair, white as the moon, falls on her shoulder without grace nor care, and her eyes are a diluted green hue that have become almost white. Still, they burn like fire in the night as she watches the 118 enter her room.

“I refuse to die,” she declares in lieu of a greeting, her mouth downward, her brows furrowed.

This time, Eddie does make a double take at what he sees.

There is nothing in this room but gigantic sigils painted in red, the largest of which is a serpent eating its own tail. Candles are everywhere, there must be close to fifty of them at least, in all varying sizes and colors.

The team, with ease born out of habit, starts working on her with only a slight pause at thestrange decoration of her room.

“Ma’am, can you tell us what’s wrong?” Bobby asks, choosing to ignore her comment.

“Death is looming over me.” Her voice is shrill, like the sounds of metal scraping together, and yet firm and decided. “I’ve sensed it following me for days, keep catching it out of the corner of my eye. It’s never been closer than now. You have to save me, it’s not my time yet.”

Eddie catches Buck’s eyes and his boyfriend shrugs, wearing an expression between confusion, concern and just a touch of humor.

Looking back at the woman, he notices that, despite the sate of the garden and the house, she herself isn’t dirty at all. She is wearing a long carmine-colored dress, it could have been quite elegant if only the cloth wasn’t ripped in some places.

He does not think he has ever seen a woman so old. Her face is weighed down by all the wrinkles etched in it and her back is rounded, eroded by the years.

She is shaking, sweat is dripping from her forehead, clinging to her dress. Pride shines through her very being anyway.

“What’s your name?” Bobby asks.

The woman shakes her head.

“You have to save me,” she repeats.

Behind her, Buck goes to blow a candle out so they don’t have to worry about the curtains catching fire on top of the woman feeling sickly.

She has her back turned to him and yet, right as the first flame is gone, she flips around with surprising strength.

“Don’t.”

Her voice is lower than it has any right to be coming out of such a frail old woman but it carries an authority such that everyone in the room freezes mid-movement.

“Ma’am,” Hen is the first to shake herself. “We may need to take you to the hospital, we can’t leave the candles – ”

“No. You’ll heal me here, and fast. I can’t leave. I have to stay here.”

Eddie almost sighs but he is too used to calls like this to show it. This is going to be a long one, he can feel it. They have been working for hours and nearing the end of their shifts, is it too much to ask that one call goes without a hitch?

The woman does not seem like she would welcome anyone trying to reason with her but they all know the signs of a heart attack to let her stay by herself like that.

“We can’t do that, I’m sorry,” Hen continues, her voice gentle and soft. “You have to come with us to the hospital. Doctors there will be able to help you much more than we can.”

Buck blows another candle. The woman’s eyes widen until all the white is showing.

“No,” she breathes out.

“Where do you hurt?” Bobby asks but she won’t hear him. A grimace of terror is distorting her face, her eyes are fixed on the far, dark corner of the room, starting at something the team cannot see.

“I’m not ready to go, you can’t let them take me.”

“Ma’am, you need to calm down.”

“No,” she shouts. “You must save me.”

Clumsily but with determination, the woman pushes Hen and Bobby away before struggling upward. The team rushes to help her or at least stay ready to catch her in case she falls.

She slaps at Eddie’s outstretched hand when he tries to catch her elbow.

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” she declares with the last of her strength. “This has been started and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I have to finish this and if you can’t me, get out. Now.”

“Please, you need to calm yourself.”

She stills – petrified, a statue of old, unattainable, otherworldly.

“Ma’am?” Hen ventures.

She turns to face them. Anger and anguish are battling in her eyes.

“It’s too late.”

With that, she crumbles on herself.

For the shortest of moment, not even a breath, no one moves.

Then, they rush to her.

Chim starts CPR, Hen puts an oxygen mask on her mouth, and they try. They try and try but the woman never breathes again.

She is gone.

“Time of death, 3:03 AM,” Bobby declares, the same touch of solemnity in his voice he always has when they lose a patient.

The house, though empty, feels crowded.

They make their escape, heads bowed, taking with them the body of its owner.

* * *

Losing a patient never gets easy, especially in such inexplicable circumstances, but all they can ever do is keep on going with their shift, on to hopefully save the next person and if not, the one after that.

The air of the house, the rotten smell of the garden linger on them but soon they forget about the Victorian house and its lonely inhabitant who lived and died in it.

It just becomes another strange call among a thousand other strange calls, a story they will tell their friends and families instead of talking about the horrifying scenes they come across.

The woman’s fate was tragic but they know tragedy well. If they want to survive, they have to leave the horror behind.

Little do they know, this one call won’t let itself be forgotten anytime soon.

* * *

The happenings don’t start right away.

In fact, an entire week passes where nothing out of the ordinary happens. What they don’t know is that it has already begun.

There is nothing they can do to stop it.

* * *

When the happenings do start, the 118 crew does not pay attention to them.

It is only just small, strange things that can be explained by inattentiveness or tiredness. So what if they find their keys in the bathroom when they were so sure to have left them somewhere else?

So what if light-bulbs after light-bulbs die?

They can explain it all away. In fact, they don’t even try to explain it.

It’s all so obvious to them, they don’t need to waste tame on these things.

They don’t even waste time mentioning them.

* * *

“I still can’t believe Harry is on his first date,” Michael declares. “I really thought we would have a few more years ahead of us before it’d start.”

“Come on,” Bobby laughs but he empathizes with his friend. “It’s just an innocent thing at that age and Isla’s parents will be there the whole time anyway.”

Michael nods but he takes another sad bite of his lasagna and proceeds to chew mournfully at Bobby’s kind amusement.

Athena has been in the same state as her ex-husband since Harry asked if he could go to the Robinsons’ on Thursday night to have a date with the _sweet and pretty_ Isla.

As it turns out, Isla has asked Harry herself who was more than happy at the outcome. It’s sweet really to see him so excited and anxious over it. He insisted on wearing a tie and a suit and made Michael buy him a bouquet of flowers to buy before he announced, with all the pride in the world, that he was ready.

Of course, Harry’s parents – and Bobby too, though he still finds it difficult to voice it at times – are happy for their kid. This is a first in his life and he proves to be handling it very well. Still, they feel as if they have been robbed of some years of innocence.

No one has been expecting such a piece of new but Harry’s joy as well as his determination to have the date go perfectly make it impossible to feel any melancholy for too long.

The two men continue chatting, soon moving from the topic of Harry’s budding dating life to safer subjects.

They are sharing stories of their own first dates when Bobby sees Michael startle and then shoot up, his gaze fixed on the sliding door leading to the backyard.

Bobby whirls around, fearing the worst, but sees nothing but an empty backyard. It’s night outside but the light from both the street nearby and the home’s lights lit the whole place.

Nothing moves.

“I saw someone,” Michael rushes to explain before Bobby has any chance to ask.

“May,” Bobby breathes out.

“She’s in her room. Go tell her to lock herself in there, I’m calling 911.”

He does not want to leave him by himself but Michael is right and so he runs up to May’s room and throws her door open.

She almost jumps out of her bed where she is laying, her computer sitting on the cover.

“Lock your windows, there’s someone in the backyard.”

“What,” she cries out but does as she’s told.

“It’s going to be okay, but stay in there until we tell you it’s okay.”

“Wait, Bobby.”

“It’s okay, lock the door behind me.”

He gives her a smile he hopes is encouraging but May is nothing her mother’s daughter. She squares her shoulders and nods, determined, before locking the door behind him.

Bobby runs back to the living room and stops in his tracks and what he sees.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Michael replies, confused. “The lights gave out for a minute and then it was like this.”

The outdoor lounge area is in complete disarray – the chairs have been thrown over and the table is overturned, and Bobby can’t do nothing but gape at the empty backyard. There is no one in sight to blame, whoever their culprit is managed to make a mess before dashing, unseen.

“How the hell did anyone manage that?”

Michael doesn’t have an answer for him.

* * *

Police comes and goes.

There is no one to find in the backyard.

* * *

Hen decides to wait until they are cleaning up the kitchen to ask her captain the question that’s been plaguing her mind.

“How’s May doing after last night?”

She keeps her voice low, hoping that none of their teammate would catch it but she should have known better than to hope for discretion surrounded by the biggest busybodies she has ever met.

“What happened last night?” Buck is quick to ask – loud.

It attracts Eddie and Chim’s attention a few feet away and they come closer right away.

“Is May okay?”

Bobby gives Buck a flat look that can’t hide the softness behind it. It’s a look he often wears when around Buck. If asked, Hen would describe it as a very parental look but no one asks, maybe because everyone thinks the same thing, except of course the two men who are only slowly coming to terms with seeing each other and father and son figures.

“She’s fine, just shaking up,” Bobby replies after a beat. “We had an intruder in the backyard last night. They made a bit of a racket.”

“An intruder?” Eddie exclaims. “What did they want?”

“I’ve got no idea, they didn’t take anything, and Harry had forgotten his Game Boy outside.”

“Game Boy,” Chim snorts and Hen pinches his arm but she has to bite the inside of her cheeks not to smile.

“Okay,” Buck cuts in again, “but they were caught at least? Athena arrested them?”

Bobby shakes his head, “She wasn’t there, she was working. And no, they left before the police arrived.”

This leaves an unfinished taste on their tongues but they do live in Los Angeles and these things happen. They can only be glad that no one was hurt and nothing was stolen. Whoever broke into the Grant-Nash backyard might not have had any nefarious goals in mind and might have been on drugs and confused.

And so they think no more of it.

This incident, like all others – small and unimportant – they forget. They move on with their lives.

Athena has already decided on changing the security system at the house since the one she had installed detected nothing. They don’t take a moment to wonder about the fact that all the cameras glitched only for the minutes that the intruder wreaked havoc in the garden.

But technology fails sometimes.

It does not occur to them that these cameras have never glitched and started working again in perfect order as soon as the intruder was gone.

They entertain no other possibilities for there can be no other.

Life goes on.

* * *

Unseen, she grows more desperate still.

* * *

All hell breaks loose on two weeks and four days after she died.

* * *

Chim hums along the song, even swaying his hips as he cooks and Maddie can’t help but smile at the sight he makes.

Her hand rests on her belly, her fingers spread wide as if cradling the life she is carrying. She imagines their baby can feel it – the love his parents have for each other, the joy radiating through the air, the easiness it is to just exist around one another.

It’s such a simple moment, Chim heating up some left-over chick soup because that’s all she has been craving lately, and her, holding a glass of Bobby’s homemade lemonade that he keeps insisting on making for her.

It is very simple and yet this moment is everything.

It’s everything she thought she would never have, that she would never deserve to have.

In the beginning, she had hoped that she would have that with Doug, and she had indeed had it, for a brief instant. Inevitably however, he would show his true, wicked face and break the illusion she would hold close to her heart like he broke the dishes he would throw at her.

But those days are long gone.

Now she is happy and loved and safe and carrying her and the true love of her life’s child.

She has always wanted kids and now she gets to have that and she is doing it with the best man she has ever met who will, in turn, be the best father a child can have.

Maddie isn’t quite looking at it when it happens.

Chim’s half-drunken lemonade glass is sitting on the far side of the table, out of reach from the both of them.

She catches the movement out of the corner of her eye.

It slides with invisible force straight to the edge, fast, and stills, just as brusquely.

She startles and yelps in fear, her gaze fixed on the glass, trying to comprehend what has just happened. It’s as if some unseen hands moved it in anger but stopped it right before it fell of the table, but it makes no sense.

No one has touched the glass at all.

“It moved!” she exclaims.

“What?”

Chim has come closer, unsure what to do, lost.

“It moved,” she repeats, her voice trembling just a bit. “The glass, it moved by itself, I saw it. I swear, I know it’s crazy but I saw it, I’m not lying, you have to believe me.”

Her eyes haven’t left the glass, she can’t help but stare at it, dreading it would move again and yet hoping for it so that Chim could see that she isn’t insane or hormone-filled.

“I do, Maddie, of course I do,” he breathes out and he wraps her in a warm embrace where she can finally catch her breathing again.

He isn’t sure what to think. He knows Maddie would not lie about being frightened, her emotions are also too real to be faked.

But what does this mean then?

What could have moved the glass?

It is true that Chim has caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes but not much of it. He has no idea what he truly saw. He waits until Maddie has calmed down a bit, caressing her back to silently show his support, and when her breathing slows, he presses a gentle and loving kiss to her temple.

Wordlessly, he goes to examine the glass.

She tries to keep him close but he steps out of her embrace with a sorry smile. He needs to make sense of this so Maddie can rest easy.

He does his best to hide it but he is troubled too. Chim has always believed in the possibility of the supernatural. In fact, he has spent many a sleepless night scrolling through supposedly first-hand accounts of such encounters.

Yet to, possibly, experience one is another thing, especially around his pregnant girlfriend.

The glass is just that, a glass. There is nothing particular about it – it’s half-filled with Bobby’s lemonade, it’s transparent and with no decorations on it at all.

He checks the sturdiness of the table, tries to slide the glass himself to see if the table is uneven but finds nothing out of the ordinary.

Dumbfounded, he can do nothing but glare at the glass.

“So?” Maddie ventures.

It happens then.

The very same glass they are staring at flies right at Chim and it’s only his quick reflexes that saves him from being hit. The glass to crash on the wall behind him instead.

Maddie yelps and then freezes, a reaction she can’t shake off when glass breaks around her. But Chim too tenses – he swears in fear.

Tears are falling down Maddie’s cheeks, she is shaking violently. He wants to rush to her side, comfort her, but his gaze is fixed on the lemonade stain on the wall where the glass shattered.

“What the hell happened,” he breathes out.

“Howie,” Maddie whimpers.

He shakes himself, scrambles to her and she throws herself at him, trembling in fright.

“It’s okay, I’ll protect you,” he swears.

He doesn’t know how though.

* * *

A shower after a long shift is an incomparable feeling.

It’s cleansing like washing away not just the grim of the day but also the horror and tragedy they have witnessed. As he watches the water swirl down the drain, Buck imagines it’s taking with it the cries of the parents whose kid drowned, the empty accusing eyes of a lonely old man who died days ago in his apartment, only to be discovered by the smell of his rotting body.

He doesn’t notice it at first.

Los Angeles is loud. His apartment is never entirely quiet, even in the dead of night, and now, as dusk is setting, he can hear the sounds of his neighbors going about, the sounds of cars passing by.

The door handle turns in a movement so slow it can barely describe as moving.

Buck doesn’t see it.

His whole focus is on massaging his scalp and getting rid of the all filth of the city. He is thinking about what he needs to be picking on his way to Eddie’s, and he’s thinking of Eddie and Christopher.

The Diaz home has felt more like _their_ home lately where he can be an integral part of it and not just an addendum.

Buck has started wondering what’s the point in him keeping his apartment if he’s never there. He knows what he wants but he waits for Eddie to ask. This is a big move and he wants his boyfriend to be sure before they take that big step.

Still, Buck daydreams about living at the Diaz home exclusively – moments of happiness and love every day.

He can’t imagine his life without Eddie and Christopher in it. Anytime he tries to picture his future, he sees them.

That would be quite the lovely future indeed if he should be so lucky.

His daydream is cut short however. He won’t know this yet, but it has started.

The bathroom door opens with such violence it makes Buck’s mirror jump out of its nails and crash to the floor where it shatters into pieces.

Buck jolts and almost slips, only catching himself at the very last second before breaking his neck on the tiles.

The door is wide open but no one stands behind it.

“Hello?” he calls out. “Who’s there?”

His voice isn’t as firm as he would want it to be.

No windows have left been opened, he is sure of that but what else could have caused this? It’s a bit of a reach anyway, there is no storm outside to make the door bang as it did, but if it were someone who opened it, then Buck would have surely seen them.

He stands there, lost and feeling clumsy in his thoughts, unsure what to do.

He can’t explain the terror that has seized him.

By all means, he should call for whoever is trying to get inside his bathroom, he should throw the door open and scare them, he should call someone, the police, Athena, someone to come and help him.

But he doesn’t move. He stares. That’s all he can do – stare, unmoving, shaking.

“Alright,” he tells himself at last, finding comfort in the sound – everything else is quiet.

As his fingers brush against the faucet to turn off the water, it happens again.

The door slams shut, just as hard as it opened.

“What the fuck,” he shouts.

No one touched the door. It shut on its own.

And then it opens again, fast and strong, and shuts and opens and shuts and he is paralyzed by panic and he doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe he wants to disappear.

The door, cursed, shuts again and stays shut but trembles under the weight of someone, something throwing themselves at it, and it rattles against the terrible onslaught.

His breath catches in his throat on a scream that won’t come out, trapped in his still lungs.

Buck has been trained to act even in the most tense and unimaginable circumstances. He is among the one who run head first into the fire when everyone else is running away.

Yet, here, in this bathroom, naked and shivering under the now cold water, he can’t move.

Again, the handle shakes.

It shakes so hard he is afraid it will shatter before his eyes.

He should move. He should barge on the other side of that door and see who is trying to get to him. He doesn’t. He remains flattened against the wall, closing his eyes in a desperate attempt at wishing the danger away.

After the longest of time, the door stills. Silence, long-awaited, falls.

Still, Buck doesn’t move yet. His whole apartment is muted, he can’t even hear the sounds of the city outside or the sounds of his neighbors going about their day. It’s as if the entire place is cut off from the rest of the word, an overlay of emptiness where nothing exists but his fear, but his beating heart.

Finally, he pushes his body – now blue and icy under the water – into movement. He turns off faucet, takes a towel that he wraps around his waist with shaking hands, and steps out of the shower.

Bracing himself, he flings the door open.

The place is empty. No one is here but him and the silence.

The front door is still locked from the inside and so are the windows. His heart in his throat, he does a sweep of his apartment and finds no one hiding in the shadows.

* * *

Buck will be there any moment. The thought is a forever comfort, a simple but beautiful joy.

His boyfriend has opted to stop by his apartment after their shift because he needed to check his mails. That made Eddie realize Buck has not spent a night at his own place in almost a month.

It clicked then.

And so tonight, after Christopher has gone to sleep, Eddie will ask his boyfriend to move in with them.

That’s a huge step but they have already taken it, they just need to make it official.

Though he has no doubt about Buck’s answer, Eddie still worries. Getting together, the change in their relationship, it’s all been so easy but Eddie has never known what to do with easy.

He is always in wait of the other shoe to drop, the thing that will break the life he has made for himself and his son, here in California.

Yet, the shoe never drops.

“I’m done with homework, Dad!”

“Good job, buddy.”

He doesn’t need to tell Christopher to clean up his school work, he can hear that Christopher is already doing it. Eddie does nothing to hide his proud smile.

It’s Friday night but Chris insisted on doing his homework right away so that the three of them could enjoy their weekend to the fullest and celebrate Buck moving in with them. Clearly, he isn’t worried about Buck’s answer at all.

For the longest time, Eddie felt like his lungs would never fill up. Every breath he would take came short. He thought that he would never know that simple peace of not having to battle your own body for breath.

Now, though, in his kitchen, Eddie’s lungs struggle no longer.

His heart beats easy, his lungs fill up.

Peace he has at long last.

But peace can never last for long.

Peace breaks.

A loud bang from the living room makes him jump out of his skin and sends him running to his son.

“Christopher, are you alright?”

A chair lays, knocked over, its legs up in the air. The wall behind it now adores a hole where the chair has hit it – hard it seems.

Eddie stares at the scene, confused into stillness, but pulls himself together, sprinting to Christopher’s side, when he notices the state of his son – agape, eyes almost out of their sockets, breath quivering.

“Buddy, what’s wrong?”

“The chair flew off by itself, Dad, I saw it, I didn’t touch it and it flew right to the wall.”

Concerned but refusing to show it, Eddie does the only thing he can do at the moment and presses Christopher to his chest, wrapping his arms around the shaking form of his kid.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here, I got you.”

All the frames in the house fall down the walls at once.

They startle and turn only to see the couch levitating a good feet off the ground. It stays there, up in the air, untouched by anyone, not moving and Eddie sets in front of his son but he doesn’t not what to do, he doesn’t understand what’s going on.

The couch drops.

The front door bangs open.

Christopher screams, screams and screams and doesn’t stop.

* * *

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Athena’s reply is to open the door wider, “Get inside.”

Chim and Maddie have never known the Grant-Nash house to be anything but clean and well-organized. This is far from being the case as they set foot inside, hoping for shelter.

The huge table that sits in the middle of the kitchen has been turned, the content of a forgotten dinner spilled to the ground. The glass door to the backyard is hanging on its hinges, shattered into pieces.

“You too?” Maddie whispers in horror.

“Yes,” and Athena nods, somber.

It’s only then that Chim notices the fire iron she is holding tightly in her hand.

Her grip somewhat loosens over when she turns to Maddie, a small but true smile on her lips, “Come sit. Are you okay?”

“Not really, no,” is the only answer Maddie can manage.

“You too?”

Bobby has just come from the backyard, he is holding a baseball bat and wearing a severe look that Chim has seen on him when those he loves are in danger.

“What’s happening, Bobby?” Chim exclaims, feeling like a kid turning to his dad, in search of answers he can’t find on his own. “This is crazy, we saw a glass fly to the wall and explode from the force of it. No one was there. But shit, it looks like you got it worse.”

Bobby sighs, “Same thing has been happening here, but yeah, worse. The table – ”

He trails off, unable to find the right words to describe something so abhorrent. Chim gets it anyway.

“Where are the kids?” Maddie asks and her voice is firmer now that she’s sitting and drinking a mug of tea. “Are they okay?”

“They are,” Athena reassures her. “Thank God they’re with Michael tonight. Nothing has happened to them.”

The door bell rings.

Everyone stills.

Bobby gives them a nod, silently telling them to stay put, but Chim follows behind, just in case – in case of what, he isn’t sure but he can’t stand by. Behind them, Athena puts herself between Maddie and the door.

The two men draw closer to the door, slowly, Bobby has his bat raised and Chim longs for something to defend himself should it come to that.

“Bobby! Athena!” Buck’s voice comes from the other side. “Please!”

Dropping the bat, Bobby throws the door open.

It’s indeed Buck on the doorway. He’s not alone.

Eddie is holding Christopher who has his face pressed in the crook of his father’s neck, fast asleep, his crutches are nowhere in sight. Buck has his shirt inside out and Chim notices that Eddie is wearing shoes from two different pairs.

“This is going to sound nuts,” Buck starts but Chim interrupts him.

“It’s happening to us too.”

Buck, Eddie and Christopher are whisked inside and the door is shut and locked before they can even begin to process what’s happening.

“Maddie,” Buck exclaims when he notices his sister.

She stands up on shaky legs and the two siblings fall into each other’s arms. Knowing what he knows about their childhood, he understands the need to make sure of each other’s safety.

“Are you okay?” they both ask at the same time.

Chim is relieved to nice Maddie is holding up better ever since they have made it to Bobby and Athena’s house.

“I am, are you? What happened?”

“I – I can’t explain it, it was insane. I was at my apartment and then my door, and then, then I went to Eddie’s and Christopher was screaming and everything was flying off, and, and – ”

“The same thing has been happening to all of us,” Athena cuts in, not unkindly. “Objects flying, as heavy as a wooden table, doors banging, lights flickering. We cant make sense of it.”

“It’s a ghost,” Chim declares. “It has to. What else could do all that?”

Though they appear to want to protest his statement, no one does. No one has a better explanation, even the more rational ones of the lot. They all have seen the impossible which leaves the impossible as the only answer.

Something unnatural is after them. Something means to hurt them.

Chim won’t let it.

He has no idea how or what or why, but he is going to put a stop to this. His family has been put into danger’s way, he can’t allow that.

“Okay, but why?” Eddie wonders out loud. He has put Christopher down on the couch but his hand is resting on his kid’s curls, as if to make sure he is really safe. “Let’s say that’s it, then why us? Why now?”

“We see a lot of death on our jobs. Maybe that’s where it came from, it’s following us.”

Christopher whines in his sleep.

“I felt,” Athena starts lowly, her gaze on the knocked over table, “like Bobby was targeted, not me.”

“Chim was targeted,” Maddie says. “A glass flew right at his face, he could have been seriously hurt.”

“So it’s us, the 118,” Buck says. “Anyone has news from Hen? Is she okay?”

“I called her earlier,” Athena reassures him. “Nothing had happened to her and Karen and the kids, they’re all okay. I didn’t know what to tell her, I just told her to call me if something strange happened.”

They should tell her more, they ought to explain the situation to her but how can anyone explain something they can’t understand?

If Hen is left alone, that’s for the better.

They can only hope whoever is targeting them is done for the night.

But they won’t take any chance – Christopher sleeps on the couch, Maddie sits on the most comfortable armchair and the rest of them settle where they can, bats and fire pokers at the ready, and for hours they talk.

Morning won’t come fast enough.

* * *

Hen has never known fear like she experiences at this moment.

Unnoticed, the cloak on her nightstand flashes 3:03 AM. Karen sleeps, her light snores the only sound in the whole house – there are no cries of fright from the kids, no movement anywhere.

The only light comes from her bedside lamp that she just managed to turn on before turning to stone.

Hen stares and stares and stares at the figure hovering at the foot of the bed.

It’s a woman.

Woman, not so much anymore. If she has been human, it’s not the case anymore.

The woman’s cheeks have melted, rotten, open, showing teeth and tongue, and there are holes where her eyes should be. Hen feels the weight of her gaze anyway. She is wearing the same red dress she died in but it’s now ragged, dirtied with mud and blood and mold.

She isn’t moving, just staring with those eyeless eyes, rotting from the inside out.

She shouldn’t be here, this shouldn’t be possible.

“No,” Hen moans in horror. “No, no.”

But any terror Hen feels can never compare to the love she bears for her family.

Looking away from whatever the woman now is proves the most difficult act Hen has ever done but she does it anyway.

“Karen,” she whispers urgently. “Karen, wake up.”

Karen hums in reply, still asleep but nearing waking up with each second that passes.

“We have to go, we have to get the kids and run.”

This does it.

Karen shots up, wide awake in the blink of an eye.

When her gaze falls on the monstrous sight in their room, she lets out a blood-curling scream that shakes what’s left of Hen’s stillness.

“Let’s go. Go, go!”

Hen catches her wife’s hand. As one, they jump out of their bed.

They don’t make it very far.

The woman’s – _ghost_ _spirit banshee thing_ – mouth drops open and out of it comes a sound so loud, so wicked, that it sends both Karen and Hen to the floor, screaming in turn at the pain they are feeling from such a shrill, unnatural sound.

The light flickers, fast. Somewhere in the house, a door bangs, loud.

Denny screams.

Another door bangs.

All the windows explode.

Nia yells.

All the while, the woman’s harrowing wail goes on and on and on, and Hen is sure her eardrums will burst from it. Everything is too loud, too much, she can’t breathe, she can’t think, she just knows terror, it’s overtaking her whole being, she is nothing but this devouring terror, this darkness around her, inside her, everywhere.

She just wants it all to stop, she has to protect her family but she can’t do anything she can’t can’t can’t

  
  


Everything stops.

The silence is deafening.

Dazed, in pain, Hen looks up.

The room is empty. The woman is gone.

She meets Karen’s eyes. Tears stain her wife’s cheeks, her bottom lip is bleeding from where she bit into it too hard.

“What – ”

But there’s no time to lose. In their rooms, Denny and Nia are sobbing in fear, calling for their mothers.

“We have to go,” Hen blurts out. “We gotta go, now.”

They have to step over broken glass but they pay it no mind. They have to get to their kids.

They won’t spend a minute longer in this house.

* * *

Athena gets the call at 3:17 AM.

“Hen and Karen are on their way,” she announces darkly.

No one asks what happened, they don’t need to.

Denny and Nia are still crying when they arrive, their eyes are red and puffy but they are not sobbing, only calmed down by their own exhaustion rather than a quietening of their fright. Hen and Karen are in no better state, still in their sleepwear and rigid with terror.

It takes a long time to put them to bed, they are terrified of leaving their mothers and Nia especially clings to Karen with a sort of despair that should not exist in a child that young. When it’s clear they won’t accept being left alone, Karen goes with them.

They make sure to leave the door to Bobby and Athena’s open, just in case.

Buck is not surprised that Christopher lays still asleep on the couch, the kid could sleep through anything and he’s exhausted from their evening.

“It was the lady from three weeks ago,” Hen blurts out as soon as Karen and the kids are out of earshot. “I saw her, Karen did too.”

“What lady?” Bobby asks, brows furrowed in confusion.

“The lady,” she repeats. “The lady from the weird house, the one that looked abandoned. Chim thought it’d be a hoarder. She died in her room, and I – I saw her, there at the foot of our bed. She was wearing the same dress, red. I recognized her. I know it was her but she didn’t, she looked – she wasn’t human anymore.”

Buck shudders. He closes his eyes and sees the house, beaten down, overrun by vegetation, sees the door to his bathroom trembling as _something_ tried to break through. His skin speckles from a cold air that is not there.

He’s tried to forget that house, bury it down, but images of it have kept resurging at random since they have been there that first time. He felt as if he would never be able to wash the aura fo that dark, empty house.

He didn’t understand why. He has seen worse, they have all seen worse – worse calls, worse houses.

Yet.

Yet it creeps up on him.

He is starting to understand why.

“Why would she be haunting us?” Buck forces himself to say, to distract himself from this darkness spreading inside him. “We did everything we could to save her."

“Sure,” Chim says, “but she only knows we failed and now she’s dead. She was clearly in no rush to bite the dust, but she did. She wants to blame someone for it.”

“Alright, that’s great. But what do we do about it?” Eddie cuts, voice firm and his gaze turns to the room Christopher is sleeping in. “She isn’t showing any signs she’s going to calm down anytime soon. One of us _will_ get hurt, or worse. We need to do something.”

“But what?” Buck exclaims, desperate. “Do we burn the house down?”

“No,” all exclaims at once.

“We can put it out afterwards.”

“Out of the question,” Athena proclaims. “No one is going back there.”

“What do you even want to do there?” Hen continues, passing a hand on her face. “ _Except_ burning it down.”

“If that’s what it takes – ”

At once, they all start talking over each other, debating what they should or should not do, trying to make sense of this irrational thing happening to them.

Deep down, Buck knows burning the house is not a solution. They have no idea what they are facing and he’s a firefighter, he knows the risks of setting fire to a house, even with a team to control it.

“We don’t even know if that would help”, Bobby reasons. “It’s too dangerous.”

“But we have to go back anyway,” Buck insists, as stubborn as ever. “I’ll go alone if you don’t want to but it’s the only way we can get any information on this. She was into weird stuff, we all saw it. Maybe we can find answers there. It’s our only lead.”

Silence falls. Dread has settled in all of their hearts.

They fear the woman coming back to haunt them as much as they fear her disappearing back into the shadows. Would she attack others? Would she target their families in revenge for her death?

“Wait,” Chim says. “Maybe she wants us to apologize? For not saving her?”

“So you think saying sorry to the mean scary ghost will be enough to make her go away?”

“I’m sorry, Eddie, I’m not a specialist on goddamn hauntings. We’re brainstorming here. Do you have another idea? ‘Cause I’m all ears, man.”

“Alright guys,” Hen steps in. “There’s no need for that here. We’re all on the same side and we all want the same thing.”

“You’re right,” Eddie sighs. “I’m sorry, Chimney. It’s just – ”

“I know, man. We’re good.”

Though they have avoided a pointless fight, tension only grows. They are too frazzled to lose sight of their predicament – they thought themselves safe for the night, but the woman has attacked Hen and her family, more violently than she has attacked anyone before.

She is accelerating and they are terrified of her end goal.

If she really only targets the team, they should steer away from their loved ones, only until the sun rises at least, and then hope that the spirit is weakened in the daylight. In truth, they are but blind.

“What do we do?” Maddie asks softly.

“Not you, Maddie,” Chim is quick to tell her. “I’m sorry but I can’t risk you.”

“You can’t ask me to not do anything while an actual ghost is trying to get you killed.”

“Maddie,” Buck intervenes. “Please, we don’t know what we’d be expecting if we go there.”

“Exactly,” she throws, determined.

“We could call my priest,” Bobby offers, an edge of desperation to his voice. “Maybe he can help.”

“I don’t know about you all but the less people know about this, the better. I don’t want all of us losing their jobs because the LAFD thinks we’ve all lost it at the same time.”

Chim’s comment has Buck wincing. He did not think of that.

No, he is right, he knows he is. The house is the only solution they have at the moment and the sooner they go, the better, or they risk the woman coming back to haunt them again.

“Bobby,” he calls. “You know we have no other choice.”

There’s another moment of hesitation. Buck can see that his friends are weighing their options but his mind is already made up.

“I’m going,” he declares. “You can come with, but I’m going no matter what.”

“I’ll go with you,” Eddie tells him and Buck smiles, sad but comforted anyway.

“Me too.”

Hen’s jaw is clenched, her eyes haunted, but she shows nothing but determination.

“I’m sorry Maddie,” Chim sighs. “But I’m going too, I have to protect you and our baby. I have to fix this.”

Tears well up in Maddie’s eyes but she knows as well as he does that, being seven month pregnant, she would not be able to help much again a dangerous spirit in search of revenge.

“Then we’ll go,” Bobby finishes.

“Bobby,” Athena starts but trails off.

“We have to, they’re right. We have to see for ourselves.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Someone has to stay here with Maddie, Karen and the kids.”

In case she comes back, is what Bobby does not say.

Buck reaches for Eddie’s hand. He needs the reassurance of his boyfriend’s presence. This is nothing any of them has ever encountered, they have no idea what they are dealing with and yet Buck is certain that, together, they will succeed in ridding themselves of this vengeful spirit.

This team, this family, they defy the odds every single day.

They can do this.

They have no other choice.

* * *

Houses don’t tell secrets.

Houses stand witness, silent, to the horrors that lay within them.

This particular house holds stories of betrayal, madness and greed, of anger, jealousy and death. If this house could tell those stories, it would not speak of them.

This house is rotten.

One could strip every stone, every board of this house yet one could never strip away the wrongness of it.

* * *

“Hell, I really hate this place.”

The house is unchanged from the last time they have been here.

It is as decrepit and foul as it was that fateful night.

They are no cowards but the need to run away is almost overwhelming.

“What are we even hoping to accomplish here,” Eddie says, not even a question. “It’s the middle of the night and we’re all about to trespass into a dead stranger’s home.”

“You didn’t see her,” Hen rasps. “You wouldn’t want her anywhere near Chris.”

“What did she look like?” Buck whispers, not daring to raise his voice too much.

Hen’s jaw clenches. “She was decomposed.”

None of them know how to respond and so they say nothing.

They walk, together, in silence, through the garden and do they imagine it or is the overgrown trees and grass closing in on them?

“What if we’re walking into a trap?” Buck questions out loud to break the quiet. “What if that’s what she wanted? For us to get here?”

“We’re here now,” Chim says. “And you were right, we have to try something before she strikes again. Whatever happens, this isn’t on you, so stop it.”

They are nearing the front door.

The world is silent now, as if holding its breath.

There are no sounds at all behind this garden. Even crickets are quiet, the very air is still in anticipation of this moment.

The door opens – slow, creaking. No one is behind it.

“Well fuck,” Chim exclaims, aiming for bravado but failing. “I think we’re expected.”

Everything is as they remember it – the same yellowed wallpaper, tired sofas, old and haunting paintings, the same oppressing atmosphere that weighs on their hearts and steal the breath from their lungs.

As one, they walk through the house, not knowing what to expect.

Will the house crumble on them? Swallow them whole, digest them until there is nothing left of them but a memory?

Will the woman show herself at last and speak? Will she drag them to hell for the sin of her death and leave them to burn with her for all eternity?

Or worse, will nothing happen? Will they face a silent, uninhabited house that is only monstrous as what they make it?

But it could not be so.

Behind them, the front door closes.

It locks.

Their fate is sealed.

Every light in the house turns on at once but they make no mention of it. They can’t or else they would turn away and run, but it is too late for that.

They dare not speak, they dare not breathe.

They walk.

They climb up the stairs making sure at every turn that nothing is hidden in the darkness, ready to jump at them and send them to their deaths. They walk so close that every step they take makes them brush against one another but they would not risk parting, even for the slightest distance.

The candles are lit.

The sigils are where they have left them, painted in red onto the floor, and the candles are lit.

The woman is nowhere in sight, no doors bang, no glass breaks.

“There are books over there,” Eddie says, pointing at a pile of ancient-looking volumes of some sorts.

If one of them has the idea of splitting up, they keep it to themselves. Even speaking it would be too much of a risk.

Luck has not been on their side since they have first set foot inside this house and luck is not on their side now as they stand in this godforsaken room.

“This is so fucking cliché and I hate it,” Chim mutters as he leafs through a huge black leather-bond book titled _The Devil’s Bible._ “Who thought this would be a good idea?”

“Did you find anything?” Hen asks, her eyes skimming through notes on demonology and death rituals that she does not understand.

Her question gets only negative answers. They are all so busy trying to search for something they don’t know that no one but Bobby notices the temperature dropping several degrees all of the sudden.

The candles flicker but do not smother.

“Guys,” he calls weakly.

Even in the direst of situations as their captain held himself up, only breaking under his own personal demons. They have never known such terror in him.

They don’t need to turn to know what is wrong but they do anyway.

It’s the woman. She is here.

Little flesh still clings to her bones and whatever is left of it is putrid and blackened. Her carmine dress is almost entirely gone and the top of her head is almost bald with how much hair she has lost.

She stares at them with empty eye sockets.

“No,” she yells and her voice shatters the window. “You should not be here.”

“We’re sorry,” Chim yells back with difficulty. “We didn’t mean for you to die. We tried to help you, we swear.”

Wind starts howling through the room, papers and books alike fly away, crashing on walls, on them.

Still, the candles burn bright.

The team is crouching, trembling. They are trapped in this house, this was a mistake to ever come here, they are prisoners of these walls.

They will die here – powerless and cowering, brought to their knees by forces beyond their understanding.

They who survived what few could, killed by a spirit.

Anger first awakens in Buck. The terror is still there, suffocating, but he has been long acquainted with death to let it take him and his family without a fight.

He catches a candlestick that’s sitting next to him and throws it at the ghostly figure of the woman.

It passes through her.

“Shit,” one of them swears but they could not say who.

The wind is so loud they can’t hear anything else. They are bleeding where the papers have cut them, wounds too big to be natural. They try to take cover, protect each other with their own bodies but the woman is relentless in her attacks.

Just as it started, it stops.

The books fall, the wind halts.

The woman is not gone but she is no longer alone.

A man, tall and rotting like she is, stands between her and the team.

They can’t see his face but his clothes, a stripped dark suit, are ripped to shreds and there is even less flesh on him than there is on the woman.

Her expression darkens – not with rage but with fear.

“Go,” she shouts at them. “I can’t protect you here.”

The man takes a step towards her. His movements are stiff and slow but determined and when one of his leg refuses to move, he grasps at is with both his hands and makes it move himself.

“You,” the man bellows at the woman. “All of this is your fault.”

“I did what you asked.”

“What the hell is going on,” Eddie whispers at his friends.

“No idea,” Chim replies just as low, “but it’s time to make our escape.”

But it seems they have been heard anyway for as soon as they make an attempt at getting up, the man turns to them. Under his eyeless stare, they crumble to the ground again.

It might just be the horrific scene he makes without lips or eyes or tongue, with maggots and flies clinging to him and eating what little flesh he has, or it might be some power they cannot begin to grasp but they cannot move.

They are frozen, even their hearts do not beat.

It’s too much. Things like this should not exist and their minds can’t handle it. The dead should not be walking, the departed should not be able to hurt them. They will make orphans of their kids, their futures will be stolen from them.

“You stay here,” the man growls. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

“They didn’t do anything,” the woman protests.

“Mara, daughter mine, do not speak to me when you’ve failed at the one thing I asked you to do. Even in death, you manage to disappoint me. How could you slice the veil open and not stay alive long enough to see me through it?”

She bows her head in shame but she has not enough hair left to hide her decaying face.

“And you,” and he turns again to the team. “How could you let her die when she was so close to saving me? Years and years, I’ve been waiting, and you can’t even keep the old cow alive long enough for her only goddamn use.”

“We tried,” Bobby struggles to say. “Let my team go, I’m their captain. Any responsibility is mine.”

“No,” his team shouts.

“You’ll have to go through all of us,” Eddie declares with all the strength he can manage.

“It won’t be a problem.”

“No, Father,” the woman, Mara, says suddenly and she is no longer the rotting corpse of an old lady but a young, slender woman with dark hair and striking green eyes. Her skin is too pale for anyone to mistake as being alive but a fire burns in her anyway. “You will not hurt them.”

“Stand down, child, you’ve done enough.”

“No,” Mara repeats. “I have watched you try and try to hurt them and I’ve done what I could to protect them but here? Here, this is not your house anymore, it hasn’t been for a long time. This is my home and I do not want you here and you will _not_ hurt these people.”

And she grows, taller, larger, until the room cannot contain her anymore and she has to bend and twist her body to fit inside the four walls. She is gigantic, unstoppable, and her father cries at her to shrink but she won’t.

Instead, she stretches her hand to pick him up. He struggles to break free but she is too strong, animated with a fire that has been smothered for too long.

“I’ve done what you bid of me all my life,” she says and her mouth twists, animal almost. “No more.”

Her grip tightens and her father screams, screams at her to let him go but her mind has been made and she will not waver now.

“I am your end,” she tells him.

Her voice is not human. It’s the voice of vengeance and justice personified.

“My daughter, my Mara,” the man begs, a pathetic sound. “You can’t hurt me.”

“No, I will not hurt you.”

The man stills and smiles, satisfied like a cat that has gotten his prey but his smile dissolves when Mara continues speaking.

“I’ll take you to those who will, back down where you belong.”

Several things happen at once.

A noise so loud they fear thunder has broken inside this very room resounds, making their hands shot to their ears in an useless attempts at blocking it.

An intense bright light flashes and blinds them, so painful they might as well be standing directly on the sun and staring at its surface underneath their feet.

Cackling, wicked, daunting, booms around them, and they feel a million hands grasping at them but, somehow, they know, they should not look, they should stay immobile.

Then comes the quiet.

A long, long time passes before they venture at a look.

They are alone in the room, Mara and her father are gone.

“They won’t come back,” Hen says.

No one doubts her. She is right, it is a knowledge that have been given to them though they can’t explain it.

Their haunting has ceased.

* * *

The house is just a house and it does not try to keep them inside its walls.

Outside, the crickets and the birds sing.

Weary but unburdened, they leave the home and its secrets behind, never to return.

* * *

There was nothing they could do to stop it, except give the strength needed to the only one who could.

* * *

_Four weeks later_

Laughter rings free.

They have faced the impossible and walked away, unharmed.

That’s why they celebrate – not so much so a victory but chance. They would not be there without Mara’s sacrifice, she who they blamed for their misery before they were taught better.

So many questions are left unanswered but maybe that’s for the best. Maybe it is better that they don’t know what goes on beyond the veil before their time.

One day, perhaps, these answers will be given.

For now, they enjoy the time they have together in the newly-bought Buckley-Diaz home.

Their happiness is laced with sorrow at Mara’s fate, but such is life.

It is then, when their attention is turned elsewhere, that a single glass is thrown off the table, untouched by anyone.

But they do not see and life goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> The only reason I posted this fic is that I really wanted to post something for Halloween and also I've worked too long on it not to. To the very last minute before clicking on post I hesitated to post it, but hey. If I suffered through writing this big mess of a fic, y'all can suffer through reading it.
> 
> I honestly don't like this fic, it might be one of the worst I've written but I really wanted to write horror (one of my favorite genres) and I had some fun writing it so I guess that's what's important.
> 
> So, please leave a comment to tell me what you thought of it.
> 
> And spooky Halloween to all of you 👻


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